Friday, 14 March 2014

EXPECTATIONS OF GOD'S LOVE

'It seems to me that the moment the Holy Spirit blows through may be far less spectacular, and require far less from us than dreadful self-preparation and self-abandonment… I was a Narnia-loving child. And one of the things I found hardest was [Lewis’] insistence on a kind of frantic willingness to dissolve yourself, to rush towards Aslan and have your head bitten off if necessary. Sometimes I think that is an artefact of the fears and protections of the person speaking. Take John Donne, another extremely egotistical Christian, who said he wouldn’t be chaste unless God "ravished" him. Well, maybe what God wanted to do was to take John Donne out to the movies and kind of gently inch His hand along the back of the seat. The fact that Donne imagined having his clothes ripped off on a picnic blanket - that’s his problem, not some kind of operating requirement of the Holy Spirit.'